Caffeinated HomeBrew

[rickfrothingham]

Sure thing Chris!

I feel like this is a (mostly) untapped idea in the HB community... just trying to spread the word on unique spin you can put on your beer.

 

[Razorbrew]

Hmmm, yeah that sounds VERY interesting! I don't have a scale that works down to that granularity, so i'm probably going to stick with refining my no-doz tabs so i can get better dose control.

Just now getting around to this experiment. Iordered the caffeine powder yesterday and will be adding it to a chocolate sweet coffee stout. Thinking about calling it 2 Shots in the Dark. I'll let you know how it turns out.

 

[chapa]

Let us know how it comes out! I like idea of the choc coffee stout also!

 

[humblesea]

Just saw this thread now, but I made a caffeinated IPA last year similar to the original post. I got a bunch of caffeine powder from a buddy and aimed for 150mg per 12oz. beer and used it in an entire 5 gallon batch. I think it was around 7.5%, 70 IBUs and I dry hopped it pretty good.

I think my fermentation schedule went as follows:
Primary for about 2 weeks
Second with 2oz. hops (forget what I used) for 2 weeks
Third with 2oz. hops, 1.5oz. oak chips, and caffeine for 2-3 weeks

I played around with the caffeine powder a lot to see how it was affected by different tempertaures. I found that it dissolved well in hot water but if it was cooled too fast it would solidify again. So I dissolved it on a hot/stir plate, brought it to a boil, then let it cool to room temperature naturally and then dumped it into the third fermenter.

It turned out pretty well and I found the taste of the caffeine to mellow with age. If I had more than two of these it would upset my stomach, but I had a buddy drink 3-4 and he had a great time.

 

[Br3nt]

I'm looking to make a beer with a little pick me up I've read through the thread and I'm somewhat intimidated by the extracting of No-Doz, my chemistry is limited. Nervous I could make someone sick, and get that horrible taste and ruin the batch.

Adding the caffeine powder does anyone prefer one over the other? Less taste etc. I have a beer in primary that I would like to add this to. I figure I would wait till third racking to add it, maybe even separate or split the patch. Caf and noncaf. Has anyone done anything more recently and found success with other products?

I'm looking at adding 3 bottles of this. http://www.energyfiend.com/purecaf-the-most-potent-liquid-caffeine-money-can-buy to a five gallon batch. 4 bottles would be the equivalent to red bull.

Has anyone tried this?

 

[dragnier]

Hi, if you are looking for something interesting to do that might help with this, I have a suggestion for you.

Make Gruit Ale instead of Beer. Hops has a sedative effect and you can make "Beer" without it but the recipes are really old. They do still use preservative herbs and sometimes even small amounts of hops, but if done right can make a really nicely flavored ale. Without hops, you wouldn't need as much caffeine to get the same benefit and possibly not any at all. You could also brew with some other stimulant herbs along side of the preservative ones to give you even more of a stim boost with or without the caffeine.

Here are some links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gruit

http://www.hi-tm.com/Documents/Spices.html

http://www.gruitale.com/intro_en.htm